Past Exhibits -
MAY 8, 2014 - FEBRUARY 15, 2015
Higbee Gallery | Sherry Schofield and Sharon Kilfoyle
The Kent State University Museum is pleased to host this invitational exhibition of felted work by fifteen contemporary textile artists from the United States and Canada. Felt is legendary as one of the oldest materials from which garments have been made.
September 25, 2014 - January 4, 2015
Broadbent Gallery | American Tapestry Alliance
The American Tapestry Alliance is pleased to sponsor the 10th iteration of American Tapestry Biennial. Launched in 1996, this premiere, international exhibition highlights the best of international contemporary hand woven tapestry.
October 25, 2013 - October 5, 2014
Alumni Gallery | Jean Druesedow, Director
Architect/sculptor/jeweler: All describe the work of Arthur Koby whom Vogue Magazine described as “one of the masters of collage.” Designer Geoffrey Beene asked Koby to provide jewelry for his runway collections as did Oscar de la Renta and Donna Karan throughout the 1980s.
September 26, 2013 - August 31, 2014
Broadbent Gallery | Margarita Benitez and Noël Palomo-Lovinski, Guest Curators
The innovative subject of the exhibition has potential to shape future ideas of fashion and business. The exhibition seeks to address pioneering applications of technology that will have a radical effect on the future of personal expression, image and clothing.
June 28, 2013 - June 29, 2014
Stager and Blum Galleries | Sara Hume, Curator
Pleating is one of the most basic fabric treatments as it serves to create three-dimensional clothing out of two-dimensional cloth. Folds and draping occur naturally when cloth is wrapped around the body. As tailored clothing developed in the West, these folds were stitched down, creating pleats.
March 8, 2013 - April 13, 2014
Higbee Gallery | Jean Druesedow, Director
"Raiment for Liturgy: Vestments in the Kent State University Collection" will highlight a variety of religious garments and textiles from the KSU Museum's permanent collection, many of which are made from lavish materials.
MAY 8, 2014 - FEBRUARY 15, 2015
Higbee Gallery | Sherry Schofield and Sharon Kilfoyle
The Kent State University Museum is pleased to host this invitational exhibition of felted work by fifteen contemporary textile artists from the United States and Canada. Felt is legendary as one of the oldest materials from which garments have been made. Created primarily of wool fibers that have been manipulated with pressure and moisture so that the fibers interlock, traditional felt is non-woven. Although wool is not the only fiber that can be felted, the physical properties of wool fibers felt more easily to form a strong bond. In this exhibition the majority of pieces are made in the nuno felting technique developed by Australian Polly Stirling in the early 1990s. The word nuno is derived from the Japanese word for cloth. Nuno felting techniques are simple, and allow the blending together of fabric and wool in the felting process. It has inspired designers to create sheer fabrics that are easy to drape and to sew into elegant garments. Fiber artists and designers are experimenting with the parameters of this process, and the result has been an amazing array of fabrics, styles, and aesthetics, as well as surprising combinations of fabrics, wools, and synthetic embellishments. By hand dying both the felting fibers and the base textiles, the artists achieve imaginative patterns of color and texture and create garments unique in both silhouette and style. Our focus in this exhibit is the use of felt in elegant garments, using both seamless and sewn felt techniques, and showcasing both sheer elegance and sturdy construction.
September 25, 2014 - January 4, 2015
Broadbent Gallery | American Tapestry Alliance
The American Tapestry Alliance is pleased to sponsor the 10th iteration of American Tapestry Biennial. Launched in 1996, this premiere, international exhibition highlights the best of international contemporary hand woven tapestry. From 118 artists who submitted 230 tapestries, juror Dr. Jessica Hemmings, Professor of Visual Culture and Head of the Faculty of Visual Culture at the National College of Art & Design, Dublin, selected 37 tapestries for the show. She says:
“The tenth American Tapestry Biennial Exhibition confirms that the weaver’s pace of work and hunger for concentration continues to deserve recognition despite our ever increasing pace of life. As the range of works selected for the exhibition confirm, the portrait, landscape and abstract image all continue to find relevance as woven images today.”
The American Tapestry Alliance was founded in 1982 to bring together tapestry weavers throughout North America and its membership now hails from countries around the world. ATA is a non-profit educational organization that offers a network through which tapestry artists interact by means of a quarterly newsletter, an active website and both educational and exhibition opportunities.
October 25, 2013 - October 5, 2014
Alumni Gallery | Jean Druesedow, Director
Architect/sculptor/jeweler: All describe the work of Arthur Koby whom Vogue Magazine described as “one of the masters of collage.” Designer Geoffrey Beene asked Koby to provide jewelry for his runway collections as did Oscar de la Renta and Donna Karan throughout the 1980s. He combines, manipulates and assembles unexpected materials, found in his worldwide travels, into necklaces that his clients can choose to wear in full evening dress or with jeans and T-shirts. The fantasy necklaces might be made of “drawer hinges, Victorian shoe buckles, diamond-faceted stones made from melted-down beer bottles, hand-carved buffalo horn and shredded or solidified balloons” as the New York Times put it in 1987. “You have to be a little daring; that’s what adds excitement!” said the designer.
This exhibition will include works on loan from clients who have amassed collections of Arthur Koby’s jewelry, and from the designer himself.
September 26, 2013 - August 31, 2014
Broadbent Gallery | Margarita Benitez and Noël Palomo-Lovinski, Guest Curators
The innovative subject of the exhibition has potential to shape future ideas of fashion and business. The exhibition seeks to address pioneering applications of technology that will have a radical effect on the future of personal expression, image and clothing. The exhibition will be divided into four categories: Generative Technology Design, Democracy of Preference/ Subversion of Traditional Production, DIY, Technology and Expression. These four categories will illustrate how designers are creatively addressing technology in a wide variety of forms to express changing 21st-century culture. The applications of technology allow articulation of complex philosophical ideas and context, the perceptions of uses of impending technology, the fostering of a new relationship with craft, and individual means of production that are shaping future conceptions of fashion and clothing.
June 28, 2013 - June 29, 2014
Stager and Blum Galleries | Sara Hume, Curator
Pleating is one of the most basic fabric treatments as it serves to create three-dimensional clothing out of two-dimensional cloth. Folds and draping occur naturally when cloth is wrapped around the body. As tailored clothing developed in the West, these folds were stitched down, creating pleats. Pleats can also be produced through heat treatment of fabric to form intentional, lasting creases.
Box, inverted, kick, knife, sunburst, accordion, cartridge, tuck…
This exhibition highlights many of the countless variations of pleating. The pieces on exhibit span more than 200 years of fashion history and are organized by type of pleat and technique rather than chronologically or geographically. Masterpieces by Mariano Fortuny, Mme. Grès, Issey Miyake, and Christian Dior are exhibited alongside folk costumes and intricate 18th- and 19th-century gowns
March 8, 2013 - April 13, 2014
Higbee Gallery | Jean Druesedow, Director
"Raiment for Liturgy: Vestments in the Kent State University Collection" will highlight a variety of religious garments and textiles from the KSU Museum's permanent collection, many of which are made from lavish materials.
The Roman Catholic Church decreed that vestments be made of silk, the most expensive and precious of all textiles, because bishops and priests celebrating mass should wear only the finest materials. For this reason, many of the vestments in the exhibition are made of luxurious woven silks brocaded in gold and silver or embroidered in polychrome and precious metallic threads.
Shannon Rodgers acquired liturgical vestments as part of the collection that formed the original gift establishing the Kent State University Museum. Along with these pieces, "Raiment for Liturgy" includes textiles from the Fulton-Lucien Collection, acquired in 1986, and the Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin College, transferred to the KSU Museum in 1995. These pieces were collected primarily as examples of the textile art of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Together these vestments serve as a survey of the extraordinary textile art of the periods of their creation.